Month: October 2010

Monday various

  • The Tea Party is a movement without a compass? Who could have guessed?

    In an unruly, unpredictable and chaotic election year, no group has asserted its presence and demanded to be heard more forcefully than the tea party. The grass-roots movement that was spawned with a rant has gone on to upend the existing political order, reshaping the debate in Washington, defeating a number of prominent lawmakers and elevating a fresh cast of conservative stars.

    But a new Washington Post canvass of hundreds of local tea party groups reveals a different sort of organization, one that is not so much a movement as a disparate band of vaguely connected gatherings that do surprisingly little to engage in the political process. [via]

  • Astronaut Uses Foursquare to Check In To Space Station. Oh noes! Does this mean one of his followers is going to use this opportunity to rob NASA? [via]
  • Can we just stop with the Battlestar Galactica spin-offs for a while? Personally, I like what I’ve seen of Caprica — just a handful of episodes, but then, I never did finish watching the original Ron Moore series — but with this new series planned to “take place 10 years into the first Cylon war,” I can’t think of another sci-fi universe that’s been this over-explored. Outside, say, of Dune.
  • An angry Leonard Nimoy writes to Gene Roddenberry in 1976. It’s funny, today blooper reels are pretty much par for the course on any television DVD set, but I can see Nimoy’s point.
  • And finally, could the world be heading towards a frightful kimchi shortage? [via]

A day in the theatre

I spent most of the afternoon in Manhattan, joining my parents for a Broadway matinee and dinner out to celebrate their anniversary. We went to see A Life in the Theatre, which, despite the opportunity to see Patrick Stewart on stage, I really can’t at all recommend. I thought both he and T.R. Knight did the best they could with some very thin material, but I have to agree with Ben Brantley’s take on it:

At least as damaging is our impression that the relationship between the two men doesn’t evolve. A counterpoint between the irritable wistfulness of Robert — eager to impart his skill to his younger confrère — and the impatient heedlessness of John is established in the beginning, and any variation on that dichotomy is sparse. And in the scenes that find the actors in costume, in plays, they are as cartoonish as figures from Broadway satires in old television variety shows.

The show is kind of atypical of David Mamet, although there are a couple of c-words tossed in near the beginning, unfortunately, just to remind you whose play you’re watching.

And would somebody tell me, when did standing ovations become something audiences did at the end of shows just as a matter of course, regardless of the show?

Then we had dinner at Keens Steakhouse, which was okay.

Now I’m home and watching episodes of Fringe — seriously, when did this show get good? — and trying to finish the Sunday crossword puzzle. I think I’m going to be more successful at the former than the latter.

A scanner darkly

I woke up dark and early this morning to do that thing everybody loves to do on their weekend: go get an lower lumbar MRI. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been having some increased discomfort and referring pain that might be a result of my herniated disc, but before we do anything else we need to take a look at a new scan and see if that really does look to be the cause.

So I woke up, showered, and drove over to the radiology place five minutes away. The one good thing about going out before 7 a.m. on a Saturday is that there’s practically no traffic. I was the first patient of the day, and I actually had to ring the buzzer to be let in.

The scan itself went smoothly. I didn’t luck out with an open MRI, but this is a different place than where I went before, and the machine was a little more comfortable. I’m not especially claustrophobic, though the MRI does seem designed to take you right up to that edge. Both times before, I’ve found that my arms get pinned a little uncomfortably, the chute down the middle being a little too narrow for them to rest comfortably at my side. That wasn’t so much an issue today, thankfully, and the scans themselves were a lot quicker. I’m not entirely sure why that is — a different machine, more specific prescription, better operator? — but I’m hoping whatever they show will suggest our next course of action.

I think I’d prefer it to be the disc, just since that’s a known quantity, and the alternatives that leap immediately to mind are a lot less appealing, but we’ll see what the doctor says on Tuesday. I have a CD of the scans to bring with me, since they weren’t going to make it to him if sent by mail. (I’m glad I asked on my way out.)

I came home and watched a little television, then caught up on a little sleeping. I tried to do some writing today, too — for most of the day, actually — but this particular story I’m working on has me kind of in the weeds, trying to figure it out. I like it, although it still feels kind of directionless, and I’m not really sure how to end it. The submission deadline is in a little over a week; I could probably rework it for something else if I miss that deadline, but I’d really like to try it there first. We’ll see. More writing this week, I expect.

Then this evening, I watched Temple Grandin, which I missed when it was on HBO. It really is a terrific movie, most of all for Claire Danes’ astounding performance. I have no great familiarity with autism, although I’ve read many raves from people who do — including my sister, who works with autistic children all the time. All I know is, Danes is captivating, and her performance never feels like a cheap gimmick, like “hey look at me! I’m playing disabled!” It’s an inspiring story, and Danes’ portrait of Grandin is fearless.